According to Gordon: Unity Games goals simple and vital

Advance file photo by HIlton FloresThe creators of the Unity Games, orthopedic surgeon Mark Sherman, left, and surgical technician Jacob Carey, greet children and parents at the basketball tryouts two years ago at the Petrides School.The Unity Games are coming up in a few weeks, that annual Staten Island event at Petrides HS which has one simple yet important goal.

The aim is to draw together a few hundred seventh and eighth-graders from different races, religions and backgrounds for a couple of days of basketball and bonding, with the hope that in some small way everyone leaves thinking a little smarter about how much the other guy really is just like you.

Talk about a worthy, not to mention timely, cause.

All you have to do is read the national headlines, or check out the bottom-feeders of radio and the blogosphere, to know that understanding of your fellow man isn’t the most popular dish on the menu these days.

Never before have so many people living at the top of the hill been so worried that the folks down by the railroad tracks might be getting a free turkey during the holidays; or so concerned that the rest of the human race doesn’t think exactly as they do, as if the world in lock-step is some grand concept to strive for.

It’s not a majority of Americans, mind you.

Not by a long shot.

Most are decent, everyday people who care about the human race and their fellow man, no matter who they are.

But the others are out there, carrying placards and seething on the radio airwaves as if America has somehow become less of a place instead of more of one thanks to diversity and integration and religious tolerance.

The Unity Games started a few years back over just such concerns.

Island surgeon Dr. Mark Sherman noticed that kids of different races, who played on the same high school athletic teams, would head off in separate directions once the games were over.

Black kids would go one way.

White kids another.

Sherman, who is white, sat down with his long-time friend Jacob Carey, who is black, and they spent hours chewing over the subject.

What to do, they wondered.

What would help?

Pretty soon the notion of the Unity Games was born, the idea being that they’d round up a group of Islanders who had the same concerns, and they would all together bring kids to the same place to play ball and attend workshops and, literally, rub elbows with others of different colors and life experiences.

Finding volunteers was the easy part.

Sherman and Carey just called some of the usual Island suspects. Guys like former CSI coach Evan Pickman and Curtis HS coach and long-time educator Bert Levinson; and Tottenville football coach Jim Munson.

Solid people from off the Island, like ex-Knicks Willis Reed and the late Dave DeBusschere, were happy to give their time to add some celebrity to the undertaking. Then the games came.

They opened the doors at Petrides one Saturday morning a few years back, and the kids streamed in.

“Hundreds of them,” Levinson said the other day.

They were a little tentative at first, the 12 and 13 year olds. But everyone gathered at the big tables in the school cafeteria for orange juice and cereal. And some local cops filed the kids into classrooms and talked about some of what it means to grow up to be decent citizen.

Pretty soon different looking kids were realizing they weren’t that different, after all.

Then games began. The organizers had drawn up the teams with a view to some serious mix and matching. The different groups looked like rainbows taking the court. Black kids were passing the ball to white kids, and Spanish kids were setting screens for Asian kids.

They played until lunch-time, then all sat down together again in the cafeteria. Only at the second meal of the day there was a lot more chatter and laughter and interaction.

“Basketball was the hook,” Wagner College player Doug Elwell said after volunteering one year and staying on to this very day to help. “But it was about a lot more than basketball.”

How did it all work out in the end?

“The same kids all came back the next year,” Munson said. “You could tell they wanted to be a part of it.”

What was so compelling about the simple, understated event?

“Really what it does is ask kids to walk a mile in the other guy’s shoes,” the Tottenville coach said last week. “If you can teach kids to do that you’re taking a big step.”

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(The Unity Games are scheduled for the weekend of March 20-21 at Petrides High School. Anyone wishing to, can find more information at www.unitygames.net).